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Series premiere – Ghosted

Ghosted is a pseudo comedy from Fox that is basically Men in Black, without the straight man. My prediction, sight unseen, was:

FOX: Ghosted – Men in Black, weekly? With extra comedy? Yeah, that’s going to need a lot of work to keep it fresh – CANCELLED;

The basic premise is that there is an organization called The Bureau Underground who does the X-files / MIB thing. One of their agents has gone missing, and his last transmission was to find two guys — one is an disgraced astrophysicist working in a bookstore and the other is a disgraced LAPD missing persons detective working as a mall cop. TBU needs them to help locate the missing agent, and in return, they’ll try and help them get their jobs back. Deal.

Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) plays the nerdy believer; Craig Robinson (The Office) plays the cop. Who doesn’t want to be partners or involved initially. They are okay together, not too over the top, and their partnership isn’t completely unbelievable. Way more understated then K though.

Ally Walker (Profiler) is familiar to me, but more for Taxi Brooklyn oddly enough. I like her, but have no idea what she’s going for in this portrayal — serious, comic, surprised, skeptical, vacuous? Adeel Akhtar looks to be comic relief in the office (ooh, forensics are weird and funny) and Amber Stevens West will be their weapons designer.

The pilot is full-on MIB, with aliens with no heads, space ships, and multiverses in the first episode. Nerds should love it but not sure it was funny enough for mainstream audiences. I liked it, didn’t love it, but it was cute. I’ll try a few more episodes but I think it will either need to up the humour or find ways to stay fresh.